What began as an AI company trying to seek solutions in order to pay remote (unbanked) workers, Near AI became, in 2018, Near Protocol. Its sharded design was inspired by modern database architecture and large language model (LLM) training. Near Protocol aimed to solve the scalability trilemma, through a modular approach, combining data availability sharding with stateless validation. By abstracting away archaic blockchain standards, Near basically enabled decentralised full stack development and, in terms of UX, a distributed custodial solution via chain abstraction and account aggregation.

We were joined by Illia Poloshukhin, co-founder of Near Protocol, to discuss Near’s journey, from AI company to high-throughput L1 blockchain, and how LLM training influenced the modular design choice.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Illia’s background in AI & ML
- Scaling large language models (LLMs) and the role of attention
- Stochastic Parrot vs. Understanding spectrum
- From Near AI to Near Protocol and the role of LLMs
- How Near abstracted the blockchain away and enabled decentralised full stack development
- Defining ecosystem standards to improve UX
- Chain abstraction, account aggregation and interoperability
- Chain threshold signature
- Near’s intent layer
- Near’s modularity, Nightshade sharding & stateless validation
- EigenLayer integration

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Illia Poloshukhin on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3S7lz2P
- Near Protocol on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3tFpYAR

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/529

Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies

#529 Illia Poloshukhin: Near Protocol – From AI to High-Throughput Blockchain

The Autonolas stack aims to address the ‘A’ in DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation), through its Open Autonomy framework, which enables the creation of autonomous, off-chain services for crypto applications. A key component for ensuring the proper operation of these off-chain autonomous economic agents, is the consensus mechanism. The protocol is overseen by the Governatooorr, the world’s first autonomous, AI-powered governor.

We were joined by David Minarsch, co-founder of Valory, to discuss the ever-changing landscape of AI agents and how they can be used to automate crypto applications.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- David’s background and founding Valory
- Agentic AI systems
- Multi-agent systems
- Autonolas’ agent framework
- Collaborative agent economy & composability
- DAO optimisation via autonomous agents
- Potential attack vectors & AI risks

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- David Minarsch on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3HxDSZ0
- Autonolas on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3vONSuu
- Valory on Twitter: https://bit.ly/42j8kzQ

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/532

#532 David Minarsch: Autonolas – Autonomous AI Agents.

We are, arguably, still early in the crypto industry, but some people were really…really early. One of them is Lefteris Karapetsas, who joined EthDev in 2014 and contributed to building the Ethereum ecosystem, since before the genesis block. His crypto journey is one for the history books, as after EthDev he joined Slock.it, right around the time of The DAO raise…and hack. Lefteris remained a core supporter of decentralisation and an active member of the Ethereum community, being involved (and delegated) in multiple projects’ governance. More recently, he founded Rotki, an open source portfolio management app that aims to preserve user privacy.

We were joined by Lefteris Karapetsas, true Ethereum OG, to discuss his 10-year long journey through the Ethereum ecosystem, from joining EthDev (pre-Devcon 0) to founding Rotki.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Lefteris’ background
- Ethereum’s beginnings
- Joining Slock.it
- The DAO r(a)ise and hack
- Ethereum classic hard fork
- Brainbot & Raiden Network era
- Founding Rotki
- Crypto accounting privacy
- The challenges of building a local app
- Rotki membership tiers
- Upcoming portfolio management on Rotki
- Future roadmap for Rotki
- How Ethereum’s culture evolved over time
- Ethereum public good funding. Optimism governance
- Hopes and fears regarding Ethereum’s future

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Lefteris Karapetsas on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RVhsXN
- Rotki on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3UszlyS

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/533

#533 Lefteris Karapetsas: Rotki – From Ethereum Devcon 0 to Building Rotki

Measuring the social impact of a charitable donation is, oftentimes, an impossible task. Founders Pledge is a non-profit organisation that aims to funnel and streamline donations from successful entrepreneurs in order to maximise their efficiency, based on data and research. Having built a network of nearly 2000 like-minded philanthropists, the vision behind Founders Pledge was to ensure transparency, unbiased assessment, ease of access and incentive alignment for its members. Despite the hurdles of running and scaling a non-profit organisation, Founders Pledge managed to stay true to its values throughout its 10 years of activity. In the end, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

We were joined by David Goldberg, founder of Founders Pledge, to discuss the landscape of charitable non-profit organisations and how data can streamline donations and maximise their social impact.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- David’s background
- Founding Founders Pledge
- How Founders Pledge works
- Joining Founders Pledge
- The challenges of managing a non-profit organisation
- Building a great company culture. Hiring process
- Maximising impact
- Assessing non-profit organisations’ efficiency
- Effective altruism
- How philanthropy changed over time
- Pledge Ventures
- Future challenges for Founders Pledge

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- David Goldberg on Twitter: https://bit.ly/48dUWyj
- Founders Pledge on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3OEGcBD
- Founders Pledge website: https://bit.ly/3uuFgJ2
- Pledge Ventures: https://bit.ly/48eQoaN

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/534

#534 David Goldber: Founders Pledge – Maximising Charity Efficiency & Impact

Prolonged range bound markets are a hallmark of bearmarkets and they usually end up chopping inexperienced or over leveraged traders. Customised structured products offer a solution for market participants that want to limit their downside, but also the upside, by introducing knock-outs at certain levels or triggers. Such custom options, usually with lower probabilistic chances of occurring, naturally come at a discount. This allows traders to hedge their risk, while also betting on certain outcomes or market scenarios.

We were joined by Zhiming Yang, co-founder of Orbit Markets, to discuss crypto derivatives and how TradFi expertise applies to customising structured products for crypto markets.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Zhiming’s background in investment banking
- FX derivative products
- Exotic options
- Crypto structured products
- Custom solutions for crypto miners
- Hedging Uniswap V3 impermanent loss
- Options based on prediction markets
- Managing counterparty risk
- Protocolising structured products
- Differences between TradFi and DeFi

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Zhiming Yang on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3T3tZci
- OrBit Markets on Twitter: https://bit.ly/49AIwS0
- OrBit Markets: https://bit.ly/3uELfv2

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/535

#535 Zhiming Yang: Orbit Markets – Crypto Derivatives and Structured Products

The monolithic blockchain era appears to be sunsetting. Among the first to contribute to this paradigm shift was Cosmos, which introduced the idea of specialized sovereign blockchains (appchains), made possible by the Cosmos SDK. Nowadays, the modular thesis employs external data availability and even execution solutions, which enables the creation of countless new chains. Each new blockchains comes with its own ‘specs’, and centralised RPC and node providers have to adapt to each chain’s setting. However, the saying ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ applies in this scenario too - we have often witnessed RPC failures during high demand periods. Lava Network aims to provide a competitive marketplace for RPC and node providers, which would compete based on their performance and user feedback.

We were joined by Gil and Yair to discuss Lava Network’s RPC decentralisation in the modular, multi-chain landscape.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- High-level overview of Lava Network
- What problem Lava Network solves
- Decentralised marketplace for RPC providers
- Quality of centralised vs. decentralised RPC providers
- Gateways
- Lava Network participants
- Specs & APIs
- Quality of service & provider optimizer
- How services are priced
- Relayers
- Modularity & chain abstraction
- Magma & Lava mainnet

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Gil Binder on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4bLondZ
- Lava Network on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3wtmK4u

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/536

#536 Gil Binder & Yair Cleper: Lava Network – Decentralising RPC and Node Providers

Blockchains are, by default, public ledgers containing every transaction recorded by the network. While this ensures transparency, it also violates users’ privacy once an address is linked to an entity. Apart from creating additional risk for self-custody, institutions are also limited by what they can publicly share on a blockchain. As a result, there is great demand and utility for on-chain, compliant privacy, which still requires KYC (& KYT), but protects them through cryptographic constructs. Zero knowledge proofs attest computational integrity, allowing for transactions to be bundled together and their correctness verified, without revealing each individual interaction. 

We were joined by Anish Mohammed, co-founder & CTO of Panther Protocol, to discuss the importance of compliant privacy for on-chain transactions, powered by zero knowledge technology.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Anish’s background
- Panther’s value proposition
- UX & on-chain privacy
- Panther’s multi-asset shielded pool architecture
- KYC & KYT
- Shielded zones and transactions
- Zone administrator
- Address mapping
- Roadmap & Panther mainnet
- Target audience & adoption
- Fee model & tokenomics

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Anish Mohammed on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3UZMpMa
- Panther Protocol on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3T1GpA1

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/537

#537 Anish Mohammed: Panther Protocol – Zero-Knowledge Compliant Privacy in DeFi

As technology progresses, infrastructure should be commoditised, especially in Web3, in order to avoid the creation of bottlenecks and gatekeepers. Blockchains are naturally oblivious to off-chain data, so they need oracles to fetch data. However, given their past technical limitations, oracles have failed to provide a decentralised and permissionless framework for data query. SEDA seeks to change this by creating an intent-based modular data layer, which brings off-chain data on-chain, in order for it to be available to any party, regardless of who requested it first.

We were joined by Jasper De Goojier, co-founder of SEDA Protocol, to discuss the oracle landscape and how SEDA aims to decentralise it and make data access permissionless.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Jasper’s background
- High level overview of SEDA
- Oracle use cases
- How SEDA Protocol functions
- Intent-based data availability
- Verifying subjective data & LLM integration
- ZKPs & FHE for data privacy
- Interoperability & bridging
- Roadmap & optimistic oracles
- SEDA token migration
- Chain abstraction

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Jasper De Goojier on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3TuTVhc
- SEDA on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Tu55Ta

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/538

#538 Jasper De Goojier: SEDA – Intent-Based Modular Data Layer

While large language models (LLMs) are rather passive from an economic perspective on their own, AI agents offer a preview of what truly autonomous AI applications can achieve. Fetch.ai aims to create a platform for economic interactions in the AI economy, where participants can provide many different kinds of stake, ranging from purely financial, in the form of cryptocurrency tokens, to utility based, in the form of data sets that LLMs can be trained on. It thus creates a supply chain that links different actors of the AI economy.

We were joined by Humayun Sheikh, co-founder & CEO of Fetch.ai, to discuss AI economic models and how LLMs can be integrated by agentic systems as a foundation for autonomous AI apps.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Humayun’s background
- Founding Fetch.ai
- Multi-agent systems
- Autonomous economic agent
- Building a Cosmos based blockchain
- Integrating ML with agent economy
- Scalability & interoperability
- Use cases & partnerships
- AI x crypto projects
- Incentivising developers
- AI alignment problem
- Fetch AI roadmap
- The future of ML & LLMs

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Humayun Sheikh: https://bit.ly/4cg0sUd
- Fetch.AI on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3vomLGx

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/539

#539 Humayun Sheikh: Fetch AI – Decentralising AI Economies

Credit is a widely used term, which could essentially be summarised as “more capital so you can do whatever you want”. In DeFi, there are numerous ways of getting exposure to an asset in a leveraged manner: from looping to perpetuals and margin trading, the possibilities are endless (especially when you also account for synthetic versions). Gearbox Protocol aims to create a universal, composable, on-chain ‘credit layer’, through credit account abstraction. This approach simultaneously addresses three concerns: liquidity, security and, ultimately, user experience (UX).

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Mikael’s and Ivan’s backgrounds
- Composable leverage explained
- Leveraged staking
- Gearbox credit account
- Managing smart contract risk
- Quotas and rate limits
- Leveraged restaking
- Governance and safety parameters
- Scaling Gearbox
- Fee structure

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Mikael Lazarev on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3xazNIn
- Ivan on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4cljGYu
- Gearbox Protocol on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4cwWiYj

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/540

#540 Ivan & Mikael Lazarev: Gearbox Protocol – DeFi Is Boring, Let's Reinvent Credit'

Market makers help create more efficient markets and liquid order books, by positioning themselves on the receiving end of a trade that other market participants are unwilling to fill. Quantitative analysis is crucial in determining their position and size. Wintermute defines itself as a tech-first company that also became one of the largest spot market making firms in Web3. From angel investing in Web2, to market making in Web3, Yoann Turpin (co-founder of Wintermute) has a vast experience in both tech products & financial markets. He shares what differentiates good traders and how he approaches investing, trading and market making.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Yoann’s background and his interest in trading
- The ever-changing trading landscape
- Wintermute’s genesis
- Trading vs. Investing vs. Market Making
- What defines a good trader
- On-chain trading vs. CEX trading
- How Wintermute succeeded
- Wintermute culture
- rsync blockbuilder
- Longterm predictions
- AI impact
- Misc. Learning new languages

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Yoann Turpin on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3PHUAcA
- Wintermute on Twitter: https://bit.ly/49c67YI

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/541

#541 Yoann Turpin: Wintermute – Avoid These Trading Mistakes! Secrets of a Market Maker

Classical, monolithic blockchains are inherently limited in their throughput due to their single-thread execution architecture. Modern VMs attempt to solve this issue through parallelisation being implemented from the get-go. Movement Labs employs the Move-VM to build a ZK L2 rollups on Ethereum, thus also deriving its security. Through parallel execution threads, Movement achieves a theoretical TPS of 160,000 while also ensuring sub-cent transaction fees.

We were joined by Rushi Manche, co-founder of Movement Labs, to discuss the rise of modern VMs and how Move-VM aims to offset Ethereum’s shortcomings through parallelisation.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Impressions from ETH Denver
- Rushi’s background
- Move vs. Solidity
- EVM compatibility
- Parallelisation vs. intent-based transactions
- Security and parallel state transitions
- Transitioning from EVM to newer VMs
- Berachain’s approach to EVM-compatibility
- Movement Labs’ tech stack
- Decentralising the sequencer
- Movement’s M1 and M2 chains
- Celestia DA and the Dencun upgrade
- Restaking
- Bitcoin L2s
- IBC-compatibility and USDC on Movement
- Ethereum x Cosmos convergence
- dApps on Move

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Rushi Manche on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3U7NiAz
- Movement Labs on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3TMmLsi
- Nebular Podcast 'Ethereum x Cosmos convergence':

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/542

#542 Rushi Manche: Movement Labs – Facebook's MOVE Will Bring Billions of Users to Crypto'

One of the most important hurdles to mass adoption is represented by blockchain scalability, which also hinders the real-life utility of its numerous applications. While there are different solutions being experimented with, one should not overlook the importance of security and decentralisation. Saga introduces the concept of chainlets, interoperable Cosmos-based sovereign blockchains that share the security of Saga’s mainnet validator set. The majority of their parameters are fully customisable, allowing developers to tweak them towards their own needs. Saga’s main focus is building their very own Web3 gaming ecosystem, providing game devs the scaling needed to unlock their full potential and creativity.

We were joined by Rebecca Liao, co-founder & CEO of Saga, to discuss blockchain scalability, its effects on dApp development and how Saga chainlets could provide 'infinite' horizontal scaling.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Rebecca’s background and Saga overview
- ‘Infinite’ horizontal scalability
- Saga chainlets and their focus on blockchain gaming
- Saga validators and fee model
- Building a gaming ecosystem. UGC
- Validator & infrastructure challenges
- Saga mainnet rollout
- $SAGA token launch and airdrop
- Takeaways

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Rebecca Liao on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3KBCes6
- Saga on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3IPX05S

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io - 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one -

This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/543

#543 Rebecca Liao: Saga – Ethereum and Solana CAN'T Scale. Our Chainlets Fix This!'

What started out as a plan to build prediction markets, Gnosis ended up building crucial Ethereum infrastructure and tooling. Safe is one of its many successes, which originated during the 2017 ICO mania, as a solution for managing the raised capital securely, via a multi-sig. Even back then, the multi-sig model was quickly adopted by the entire industry, as a gold standard for asset security. Smart accounts and ERC-4337 represent the next step towards mass-adoption, through achieving a Web2-like UX.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Lukas’ background and how Safe was founded
- Bitcoin vs. Ethereum multi-sigs
- Smart accounts & ERC-4337
- Safe’s design phylosohpy
- Safe CORE, SDK & API
- Safe wallet UX
- Expanding cross-chain support
- Safe account recovery
- OpSec
- Safe’s smart contract security
- Gnosis ecosystem evolution

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Lukas Schor on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3xRiDzC
- Safe on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3W4JJNT
- Gnosis DAO on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4aC3Yaf
- Gnosis Chain on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3xOKAbj
- Gnosis Pay on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4cYRw5Z

Sponsors: 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one - 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/544

#544 Lukas Schor: Safe – Securing $100 Billion of Crypto Assets

Long regarded as an impending black swan, Tether has successfully weathered out the contagion and bank runs caused by Luna’s collapse in the depths of the 2022-2023 bearmarket. Since then, a large portion of Tether’s reserves has been shifted to treasury bills, which are the closest dollar proxy, positioning Tether among the top 20 holders of T-bills, worldwide. However, navigating the Tether FUD was not the first rodeo for Paolo Ardoino, as he has also previously led Bitfinex, which successfully recovered after a $72M hack, back in 2016. The worldwide adoption of USDT, especially in emerging markets and developing economies, serves as a testament to Tether’s commitment to create a product with tangible real-life applications.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Paolo’s background
- How Bitfinex succeeded
- DEX vs. CEX UX
- Entrepreneurship and company culture
- Founding Tether and its use cases
- Expanding Tether’s cross-chain support
- Tether’s reserves and long-term vision
- Stablecoin wars: BUSD & USDC
- Decentralized stablecoins and bank runs
- The potential of diversifying physical backing
- Holepunch & Keet - the P2P renaissance
- Incentivising P2P interactions

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Paolo Ardoino on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3JBVYdi
- Tether on Twitter: https://bit.ly/4b5CdY1
- Bitfinex on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3w97AkW
- Holepunch on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3JyaL8Y
- Keet on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3xSyGxg

Sponsors: 
- Chorus1: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at chorus.one - 
- Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at gnosis.io -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/545

#545 Paolo Ardoino: Tether – Is Tether's USDT Safe?

Support the show, consider donating: 128EF4NQNc5ZjvBZ6u11inbRE9SQyU6BPe (http://bit.ly/2eT3d3j)

String Labs founders Tom Ding and Dominic Williams joined us to discuss their project DFINITY, a next-generation blockchain network. Through leveraging technological advances, DFINITY aims to deliver an infinitely scalable decentralized cloud that will be able to power applications from decentralized search to supply chain applications. We covered DFINITY's approach to scalability, interoperability, consensus as well as their sophisticated approach to governance: The Blockchain Nervous System. 

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Tom and Dominic ended up founding String Labs
- The DFINITY project and objective of an infinitely scalable decentralized cloud
- How consensus works in DFINITY
- Governance in DFINITY through the Blockchain Nervous System
- Threshold Relay signatures and other new technologies that are part of DFINITY
- The importance and mechanics of public/private blockchain interoperability
- DFINITY's business model

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- String Technology: http://bit.ly/2eyZA3E
- DFINITY Shanghai Talk: http://wi.st/2ez0gGg
- DFINITY Shanghai Presentation Slides: http://bit.ly/2frVj1j
- Introducing Random Beacons Using Threshold Relay Chains: http://string.technology/2016/09/14/threshold-relay-random-beacon.en/
- Random Beacons in Decentralized Networks: http://bit.ly/2fScNod

Sponsors: 
- Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices - http://jaxx.io
- Ledger: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EPICENTER - http://ledgerwallet.com

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/157
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/fzG9L4Ry6O4
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-157

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

157 – Tom Ding & Dominic Williams: DFINITY and the Quest for a Decentralized Cloud

Support the show, consider donating: 19AG8qZ2a3hDaSvmgRjjDiKkWQBkSg5UKM (http://bit.ly/2jHyAwM)

One of the key issues with blockchain networks is the lack of interoperability. In the early days of Bitcoin, blockchain interoperability was far from people's minds. However, as new networks continued to emerge and gain traction, the ability to move assets freely from one blockchain to another has become a critical feature.

We're joined by Jae Kwon, CEO and Founder of Tendermint, the team which is launching the Cosmos Network. Cosmos aims to build the internet of blockchains: A global network of blockchains, connected through hubs that allow trustless token transfer. Jae joined us to discuss the Cosmos vision, the underlying Tendermint consensus algorithm and upcoming fundraiser.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- What Cosmos is and the problems it hopes to solve
- How Tendermint and Ethereum relate to Cosmos
- How Cosmos differs from other attemps to solve blockchain interoperability
- Cosmos' consensus algorithm, BFT-PoS
- The role of Hubs and Zones in the Cosmos Network
- Cosmos' native asset, Atom, and its role in creating liquidity for inter-blockchain exchange
- How validator nodes will be chosen
- Governance in the Cosmos Network
- Applications for Cosmos
- The Atom fundraiser and Cosmos' product roadmap

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Cosmos: Internet of Blockchains: https://cosmos.network
- Tendermint: https://tendermint.com/
- Epicenter 113: Tendermint - Private Modularized Blockchains: http://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/113
- Cosmos Whitepaper: https://cosmos.network/whitepaper

Sponsors: 
- MerkleWeek: Blockchain Training, Keynotes & Hackathon in Paris from March 9th to 12th - Get 30% off with promo code EPICENTER - http://www.merkleweek.com/
- Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices - http://jaxx.io

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/170
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/t885QSY0sNQ
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-170

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

170 – Jae Kwon: Cosmos - The Internet of Blockchains

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In the world of Bitcoin podcast, there is one show which definitely stands out as the longest running, Let's Talk Bitcoin! In its 4-year history, the show has produced over 320 episodes and expanded to become a network of podcasts which includes Epicenter and many others. 

We're joined by Adam B. Levine the founder and host of Let's Talk Bitcoin! It was thanks to Adam that Sébastien and Brian first connected in 2013, so in many ways, we consider him as the "spiritual grandfather" of Epicenter. Adam reflects on his signature show and the network he created in 2014. He discusses the future of the network and makes an announcement live on the show, which even takes us by surprise.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- The history of the Let's Talk Bitcoin! podcast
- What listeners can expect for the future of the show
- The LTB Coin reward token experiment, what was learned and the future of that project
- The Let's Talk Bitcoin! Network and how it's evolving
- The Tokenly project and its use cases
- Token.fm: a platform for music creators to sell licences to their music as tokens

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Token.FM - Early Access: http://token.fm
- BTC Media: http://btcmedia.org
- Adam B. Levine: Let’s Talk Bitcoin Network, LTBCoin, Monetizing Content & Crowdfunding — Epicenter: https://epicenter.tv/episode/064/
- Let's Talk Bitcoin!: http://letstalkbitcoin.com

Sponsors: 
- Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices - http://jaxx.io
- Ledger: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - Get 10% off your first order when you use the code EPICENTER - http://ledgerwallet.com

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/176
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/FBypnbWXHMA
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-176

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

176 – Adam B. Levine: Building a Blockchain Podcast Network

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The saying goes: if you're not paying for it, it's likely that you're the product. And with the rise of targeted ads, user behavior tracking, and alike, more and more users are turning to ad blocking software to protect their privacy and improve their browsing experience. In the last 25 years, the content monetization and Internet advertising industries have evolved to become complex ecosystems with multiple intermediating layers between users, publishers, and advertisers. This has created a situation where user's rights are constantly violated and where little accountability exists.

We're joined by Brendan Eich, Founder, and CEO of Brave. As an early Internet pioneer, Brendan created Javascript while working at Netscape in the mid 90's, and helped found the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, where he served as CEO for several years. Brave is a new desktop and mobile browser which blocks ads and tracking by default. This has the advantage of drastically improves page load times while protecting users' privacy. But Brave is much more than just a browser. Their team will launch the Basic Attention Token, which will serve as the currency of attention marketplaces between publishers, advertisers, and users. With the ambition to turn the Internet advertising industry on its head, this new attention economy marketplace will eliminate the need for unneeded intermediaries, provide publishers with new content monetization models and remunerate users when they chose to share their data with advertisers.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Brendan's background as an early Internet pioneer
- How monetization of content and attention on the Internet are broken
- How the Internet advertising industry works and the players involved
- A high-level overview of the Brave browser
- Brave's features and product roadmap
- The Basic Attention Token and its role as a currency for attention
- How BAT will serve to create attention marketplaces between publishers, advertisers, and users

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Brave Website: https://brave.com
- Basic Attention Token: https://basicattentiontoken.org/

Sponsors: 
- Ledger: Smart card security for your Bitcoins - http://ledgerwallet.com

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/185
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/MUtHhYes6-A
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-185

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

185 – Brendan Eich: Brave – Reinventing the Monetization of Content and Attention

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Numerai Founder Richard Craib joined us to discuss his radical project to build a hedge fund with network effects. Numerai manages its portfolio by giving its data in encrypted form to data scientists who compete to create the best predictions and get paid with cryptocurrencies. Numerai expects to radically alter the structure of the hedge fund and asset management industry.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- How hedge funds work and what trends effect them
- Quantitative trading and the role of AI in investing
- How Numerai uses crowdsourcing and AI to manage its portfolio
- How Numerai lets data scientists build models without knowing the underlying data
- The Function of Numerai's own token Numeraire
- Why Numerai is switching from paying data scientists in Bitcoin to Ethereum
- Numerai's crazy goal of managing all the money in the world

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Numerai: https://numer.ai/
- Numerai Whitepaper: https://numer.ai/whitepaper.pdf
- An AI Hedge Fund Goes Live On Ethereum – Numerai – Medium: https://medium.com/numerai/an-ai-hedge-fund-goes-live-on-ethereum-a80470c6b681
- A New Cryptocurrency For Coordinating Artificial Intelligence on Numerai: https://medium.com/numerai/a-new-cryptocurrency-for-coordinating-artificial-intelligence-on-numerai-9251a131419a
- Encrypted Data For Efficient Markets: https://medium.com/numerai/encrypted-data-for-efficient-markets-fffbe9743ba8
- Building the Numerai Meta Model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhJnt0N497c
- Introducing Numeraire: https://vimeo.com/205032211

Sponsors: 
- Ledger: Industry standard security meets convenience and usability with the Nano S - http://epicenter.tv/ledger
- Shapeshift: Buy and sell alt coins instantly and securely without a centralized exchange - http://epicenter.tv/shapeshift

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/191
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/Xa6L2UHTm2g
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-191

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#191 Richard Craib: Numerai - A Revolutionary Hedge Fund Built on Blockchain and AI

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We're joined by Loi Luu, Co-founder of KyberNetwork. This new decentralized exchange protocol, built on Ethereum, aims to match buyers with reserve operators, who create liquidity for crypto-asset pairs. Trades occur instantaneously and without the need for a trusted third party exchange operator.


Topics discussed in this episode:
- Loi's background and involvement with various projects such as TrueBit, Smart Pool, and Oyente
- The desirable features of a decentralized exchange
- Other decentralized exchange projects and how they compare to KyberNetwork
- KyberNetwork's unique design philosophy
- KyberNetwork's user experience and how a trade occurs from start to finish
- The various actors in the network and their respective roles
- How KyberNetwork mitigates certain vulnerabilities, such as transaction front running
- How network actors are compensated
- KyberNetwork's DAO governance model and development roadmap

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- KyberNetwork: https://kyber.network/
- KyberNetwork Blog: https://blog.kyber.network/
- KyberNetwork White Paper: https://kyber.network/assets/KyberNetworkWhitepaper-v0.5.pdf

Sponsors: 
- Shapeshift: Buy and sell alt coins instantly and securely without a centralized exchange - http://epicenter.tv/shapeshift
- Jaxx: Wallets that Unify the Blockchain Experience Across Devices - http://epicenter.tv/jaxx

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/195
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/FrC67cv0MKA
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-195

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#195 Loi Luu: KyberNetwork – Towards Truly Decentralized Crypto-Asset Exchanges

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Scalability and interoperability are two of the main issues facing blockchain protocols today. In a future in which entire industries and economies rely on distributed technologies, it is unclear how blockchain networks will support massive amounts of data, and exchange transactions in a trusted way. 

Peter Czaban, co-founder of Polkadot, joins us as we dive deep into the Polkadot Network. Polkadot is a heterogeneous multi-chain network, consisting of many connected chains (or parachains), all of which have their own set of features and characteristics. Transactions flow across chains, while Polkadot ensures the global security and consensus of the network, forming an ‘Internet of Blockchain networks’. Scalability is achieved through the parallel processing of transactions on the different parachains.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Peter's background and his role at Parity technologies
- What is the Polkadot project and what problems it is addressing
- How Polkadot handles the issue of scaling
- The different components of the Polkadot Network
- The various players in the network
- The consensus model used in Polkadot
- The types of applications Polkadot would enable
- The Web3 Foundation and its goals

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Polkadot Website: https://polkadot.io
- Polkadot Pre-Sale Website: https://polkadot.network
- Polkadot Community Chat: https://riot.im/app/#/room/#polkadot-trenches:matrix.org
- Aura Consensus: https://github.com/paritytech/parity/wiki/Aura

Sponsors: 
- Ledger: Industry standard security meets convenience and usability with the Nano S - http://epicenter.tv/ledger
- Shapeshift: Buy and sell alt coins instantly and securely without a centralized exchange - http://epicenter.tv/shapeshift


Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#199 Peter Czaban: Polkadot – The Internet of Blockchain Networks

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For many years, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were regarded as little more than a nerdy curiosity by the financial world. But with the rise of Bitcoin and Ethereum, the process of cryptocurrencies becoming a recognized asset class has begun. 

One person at the forefront of this transformation is Ari Paul. Previously a portfolio manager at the University of Chicago's $8 billion endowment, he recently left to start the cryptocurrency hedge fund BlockTower Capital. He joined us for an insightful conversation about one of the biggest trends in the industry.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Ari's background as a portfolio manager at the University of Chicago
- The difficulties of investing in cryptocurrency for a large endowment
- Why he started the cryptocurrency hedge fund BlockTower Capital
- How to construct a cryptocurrency portfolio
- The hedge fund vs the VC model in the cryptocurrency space
- Why cryptocurrencies represent an exceptional investment opportunity
- The operational complexities of running a crypto hedge fund
- Why an avalanche of institutional money is entering the blockchain space

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- The Cryptocurrency Investor Blog: https://thecryptocurrencyinvestor.com/
- How to Think About Investing in Cryptocurrency: Why Exceptional Opportunities Exist: https://thecryptocurrencyinvestor.com/2017/04/13/how-to-think-about-investing-in-cryptocurrency-part-1-of-4-why-exceptional-opportunities-exist/
- How to Think About Investing in Cryptocurrency: What needs to exist: https://thecryptocurrencyinvestor.com/2017/04/17/how-to-think-about-investing-in-cryptocurrency-part-2-of-4-what-needs-to-exist/
- Table Selection | The Cryptocurrency Investor: https://thecryptocurrencyinvestor.com/2017/08/01/table-selection/
- The Wall Street Moment | The Cryptocurrency Investor: https://thecryptocurrencyinvestor.com/2017/07/14/the-wall-street-moment/
- BlockTower Capital: https://blocktower.com/
- Twitter - Ari Paul: https://twitter.com/aridavidpaul

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/202
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/wiOC-_JW6Sw
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-202

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#202 Ari Paul: BlockTower Capital and the Cryptocurrency Opportunity

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For the very first time, all three Epicenter hosts found themselves in the same location. After attending Ethereum's DevCon 3 in Cancun, we were at a Cosmos Retreat and discussed the conference, retreat, state of the Ethereum ecosystem and recent Parity hack. 

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Recap of Ethereum's DevCon 3 conference
- Current state of Ethereum
- The most interesting new projects at DevCon
- The post-DevCon Cosmos retreat
- The internet of blockchain thesis
- The case for blockchain's having sovereignty
- The massive loss of funds due to Parity's flawed multisig contract
- The pros and cons of an Ethereum hard fork

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Ethereum Developers Conference (Devcon3): https://ethereumfoundation.org/devcon3/
- Cosmos - Internet of Blockchains: https://cosmos.network/
- Many Chains One Ecosystem Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/SunnyAggarwal2/tendermintcosmos-many-chains-many-tokens-one-ecosystem
- Many Chains One Ecosystem - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN_SAX73AMg&feature=youtu.be
- Ethereum Client Bug Freezes User Funds as Fallout Remains Uncertain - 
CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-client-bug-freezes-user-funds-fallout-remains-uncertain/
- Parity Multi-Sig Wallets Deployed After 7/30 Issue : ethereum: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7bchez/parity_multisig_wallets_deployed_after_730_issue/
- Security Alert – Parity Technologies: https://paritytech.io/blog/security-alert.html

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/208
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/yqwudN8Pg0U
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-208

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#208 : Post DevCon3 Roundtable: State of Ethereum, Cosmos Retreat and Parity Hack

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In the blockchain world, few people are as brave as Tim Swanson when it comes to busting hype. Tim's unbiased, honest, and sometimes controversial opinions provide a refreshingly realistic view of blockchain adoption and applications of this technology by people and businesses. Cutting through the hype, the over-sold press releases ad the blind optimism of a completely decentralized economy, Tim's insights provide a sobering look at the state of the blockchain.


Topics discussed in this episode:
- Tim's background and recent departure from R3
- The current state of the enterprise blockchain market
- The state of Bitcoin in the context of the recent price increase
- Tim's thoughts on the recent spike in ICO's
- The rumors and concerns surrounding Bitfinex and Tether
- The rise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as an asset class
- Current problems in Bitcoin: governance and centralization of power
- Tim's new project: Post Oak Labs


Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#213 Tim Swanson: Busting the Great Wall of Hype

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That decentralized networks represent a massive investment opportunity is no longer a controversial view. In the last year alone, over 200 funds dedicated to investing in cryptoassets have been created. 

But the principles and frameworks to understand this new world are still in its infancy. One fund at the forefront of advancing this understanding has been Multicoin Capital. Their Founders Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain joined us to discuss some of the concepts they use to invest in decentralized networks.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- Google Glass and the origin story of Multicoin Capital
- Why the most used smart contract platform will produce the winning store of value
- Why they are bearish on Bitcoin
- Why money is best thought of as an adjective not a noun
- Differentiating between work, payment and burn-and-mint tokens
- Why work tokens capture network value better than payment tokens
- The future of Multicoin

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Multicoin Capital Website: https://multicoin.capital/
- New Models for Utility Tokens: https://multicoin.capital/2018/02/13/new-models-utility-tokens/
- Blockchains: A New Social Order: https://multicoin.capital/2017/10/06/blockchains-new-social-order/
- The Smart Contract Network Fallacy: https://multicoin.capital/2017/08/28/smart-contract-network-effect-fallacy/
- The Opportunity for Interoperable Chains of Chains: https://multicoin.capital/2018/01/27/opportunity-interoperable-chains-chains/
- Multicoin Capital Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-multicoin-capital-podcast/id1337809097?mt=2

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/223
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/JajqF1IWquQ
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-223

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#223 Kyle Samani & Tushar Jain: Multicoin - Emerging Frameworks for Cryptoasset Investing

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We were joined by Anson Zeall, who is one of the leaders of Singapore's blockchain and FinTech community. We discussed how the Singapore ecosystem evolved, why it became a popular place to locate cryptocurrency project, its current regulatory framework. We also dove into some of the projects he is currently involved in including one involving tokenizing cows!

Topics discussed in this episode:
- The evoluation of the Singapore blockchain ecosystem and role played by ACCESS
- The favorable mechanics of Singapore's regulatory regime
- Singapore's experiment to tokenize the Singapore Dollar on Ethereum
- How Anson's startup CoinPip uses Bitcoin as a payment rail in South East Asia
- Sentinel Chain and its efforts to provide financial access to the unbanked
- The upcoming Singapore blockchain conference De/Centralize

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- ACCESS: Association of Cryptocurrency Enterprises and Startups, Singapore: https://access-sg.org
- CoinPip: https://www.coinpip.com
- Sentinel Chain: https://sentinel-chain.org
- InfoCorp - Rebuilding Inclusive Fintech: https://infocorp.io
- Singaporean Dollar Tokenized Through Ethereum’s Blockchain by the Monetary Authority of Singapore: https://www.trustnodes.com/2017/06/07/singaporean-dollar-tokenized-ethereums-blockchain-monetary-authority-singapore
- Singapore Becomes Favored ICO Destination for Blockchain: https://cointelegraph.com/news/singapore-becomes-favored-ico-destination-for-blockchain-companies
- Cow Token White Paper: https://infocorp.io//wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Cow-Token-A-Local-Blockchain-Use-Case.pdf
- De/Centralize 2018: https://www.decentralize.sg/

Sponsors: 
- Shapeshift: Buy and sell alt coins instantly and securely without a centralized exchange - http://epicenter.tv/shapeshift

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/225
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/NfVuSK-WYXk
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-225

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#225 Anson Zeall: Blockchain in Singapore and South East Asia

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The healthcare industry is paradoxical. On the one hand, treatment technologies represent some of the most advanced science known to humankind, while some administrative tasks are still performed using paper and fax machine. Studies have shown that the administrative costs of healthcare can represent up to one-third of the total cost of care. Also, as diagnosis, treatment, and care, becomes increasingly data-driven and patient-specific, the industry needs to adopt more secure and robust technologies to manage patient data and communications between the patient and the different participants in the healthcare supply chain.

We are joined by John Bass and Corey Todaro, who are respectively CEO and CPO of Hashed Health, an innovation firm focused on accelerating the meaningful development of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies for the industry. Hashed Health works to build solutions which leverage blockchain to solve some of the most important challenges facing this sector.

Topics discussed in this episode:
- John and Corey's respective backgrounds in the building technology for the healthcare sector
- Nashville as a hub for the US healthcare industry
- What is Hashed Health and what problems the company is trying to solve
- The particular issues facing the US and global healthcare sectors
- How healthcare in the US differs from that of European countries
- The different entities of Hashed Health: Hashed Collective, Hashed Labs, and Hashed Enterprise
- Hashed Enterprise and the products they are building for the industry

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- Hashed Health Website: http://hashedhealth.com
- Hashed Health Blog: https://hashedhealth.com/blog/
- Hashed Health Podcast: https://hashedhealth.com/media/podcasts/

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis X: Build a revolutionary prediction market dApp on Gnosis & win up to  $100,000 in GNO tokens - http://epicenter.tv/gnosisx

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/228
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/SVJSjQ8wwCk
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-228

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#228 Corey Todaro & John Bass: Hashed Health – Rebooting The Healthcare Industry

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With the advent of mature quantum technologies, many of the critical cryptographic protocols which secure the Internet, financial transactions and even military secrets may become susceptible to new attack vectors. For instance, while it may take a computer millions of years to decipher a public key’s corresponding private key, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer might achieve this in a reasonable amount of time. With this reality looming over us, many in the blockchain space worry that someone with access to a quantum computer might one day have the ability to steal their hard-earned crypto.

We’re joined by Ajay Prakash and Gavin Brennen, founders of the Qubit Protocol, a decentralized blockchain-enabled governance protocol that is meant to select and fund the best startups in the quantum world. As a co-author of the recent paper “Quantum attacks on Bitcoin, and how to protect against them,” Gavin walks us through the primary threats that quantum computing poses on Bitcoin. Among the major vulnerabilities are hashing functions and Elliptic Curve algorithms used for digital signatures, both fundamental components of Bitcoin, as well as many other blockchain protocols. 


Topics discussed in this episode:
- What are quantum technologies and how they differ from the existing paradigm
- The areas and industries which are to benefit most from quantum computing
- A refresher on hashing algorithms as one-way functions
- What a quantum attack on Bitcoin mining might look like
- How Elliptic Curve digital signature algorithms work and how public and private keys are generated
- The three types of attacks a quantum computer could perform digital signatures
- The expected timelines for these attacks to be viable
- The potential countermeasures which could circumvent quantum attacks on Bitcoin
- The Qubit Protocol as a DAO to fund quantum technology startups and the challenges of investing in the quantum space
- The project’s roadmap and upcoming ICO

Sponsors: 
- Shapeshift: Buy and sell alt coins instantly and securely without a centralized exchange - http://epicenter.tv/shapeshift

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/231
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/sqfiNy27Fz0
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-231

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#231 Ajay Prakash & Gavin Brennen: Qubit Protocol – Quantum Computing & The Coming Threat to Crypto

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We are joined by Charles Hoskinson, who played an early role in developing Ethereum and BitShares, and is currently the CEO of IOHK. IOHK is an engineering company that undertakes cryptocurrency research, contributes development efforts to the Ethereum Classic ecosystem, and is spearheading the release of Cardano - a third generation blockchain protocol. IOHK has made the news recently after the publication of fundamental research papers on the Proofs of Proof of Work and the Ouroboros PoS algorithm, and its recruitment of highly rated academics.
 

Topics discussed in this episode:
- IOHK's role in the Ethereum Classic ecosystem, and how Ethereum Classic differs from Cardano
- Cardano as a ""third generation blockchain"" and what this means
- Governance system of Cardano and the challenges behind developing a decentralized governance system
- Ouroboros PoS algorithm - why was it developed and what's special about it
- Ouroboros Genesis: how full nodes can be bootstrapped without requiring checkpoints
- Cardano's bet on K framework for smart contract execution

Links mentioned in this episode: 
- IOHK analysis of the Dash governance system: https://iohk.io/research/papers/#NSJ554WR
- Ouroboros Genesis intro by Prof Aggelos Kiayias: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCeK_4o-NCc
- Ouroboros technical paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/889.pdf
- Ouroboros Praos technical paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/573.pdf
- Algorand: https://www.algorand.com/
- Proofs of Proof of Work: https://fc16.ifca.ai/bitcoin/papers/KLS16.pdf
- K Framework formal analysis technical paper: http://fsl.cs.illinois.edu/FSL/papers/2017/rosu-2017-marktoberdorf/rosu-2017-marktoberdorf-public.pdf
- K framework website: http://www.kframework.org/index.php/Main_Page

Sponsors: 
- Gnosis X: Build a revolutionary prediction market dApp on Gnosis & win up to  $100,000 in GNO tokens - http://epicenter.tv/gnosisx

This episode is also available on :
- Epicenter.tv: https://epicenter.tv/234
- YouTube: http://youtu.be/2DFYBb_zOpc
- Souncloud: http://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-234

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sébastien Couture & Meher Roy.

#234 Charles Hoskinson: Cardano – A Third Generation Smart Contract Blockchain

Epicenter is a podcast about the technologies, projects & people driving decentralization and the global blockchain revolution.

Epicenter is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sebastien Couture and Meher Roy. Every week, we find the most interesting people in the industry for in-depth discussions about their projects, ideas and stories.

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